European Tribune - Comments - My depressing Irish Election diary.

My depressing Irish Election diary. | 11 comments (11 topical, editorial, 0 hidden)

Re: My depressing Irish Election diary. (none / 1)

All political systems are compromises. "Ideal" proportional representation can have the property of making reasonably stable governments difficult to put together. As it is local patronage has a disproportionate influence. If the geographic constituencies are too large politicians don't have a link to their voters.

What would you consider ideal?

by Colman (colman at eurotrib.com) on Thu May 24th, 2007 at 11:53:14 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: My depressing Irish Election diary. (none / 1)

Each system has different flaws and people coming from different systems tend to focus on fixing the flaws of the system they're familiar with. Personally, having exparienced closed party lists with large constituencies (Spain) and first-past-the-post (US and UK) I think I have seen the worst of the two extremes. I personally would favour an additional member system with single transferable voting for local constituencies plus party lists for global proportionality. (see, for example, this comment)

Bush is a symptom, not the disease.

by Migeru (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Thu May 24th, 2007 at 12:05:37 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: My depressing Irish Election diary. (none / 1)

I would see the ideal size for an STV constituency as something like 5 to 7 seats. Large enough to be reasonably proportional but small enough for the concerned voter to have some chance to differentiate between the candidates.

The power and convenience of the voters is the important thing, not that of the politicians.

by Gary J on Tue May 29th, 2007 at 12:38:31 PM EST
[ Parent ]

My depressing Irish Election diary. | 11 comments (11 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)

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